You should hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken.” Edna Ferber

Edna Ferber was a triple threat: She was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels included the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big, Show Boat, Cimarron, and Giant. Since today, August 15, is her birthday, here’s a glimpse of her wit and wisdom:

“Perhaps too much of everything is as bad as too little.”

“Living the past is a dull and lonely business; looking back strains the neck muscles, causing you to bump into people not going your way.”

 “Big doesn’t necessarily mean better. Sunflowers aren’t better than violets.”

“Life can’t ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer’s lover until death–fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous constant.”

“I think that in order to write really well and convincingly, one must he somewhat poisoned by emotion. Dislike, displeasure, resentment, faultfinding, imagination, passionate remonstrance, a sense of injustice — they all make fine fuel.”

“A stricken tree, a living thing, so beautiful, so dignified, so admirable in its potential longevity, is, next to man, perhaps the most touching of wounded objects.”

“To be alive is a fine thing. It is the finest thing in the world, though hazardous. It is a unique thing. It happens only once in a lifetime. To be alive, to know consciously that you are alive, and to relish that knowledge – this is a kind of magic. Or it may be a kind of madness, exhilarating but harmless.”

“I am not belittling the brave pioneer men but the sunbonnet as well as the sombrero has helped to settle this glorious land of ours.”

“If men ever discovered how tough women actually are, they would be scared to death.”

“Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Writing may be interesting, absorbing, exhilarating, racking, relieving. But amusing? Never!”

“Funny, isn’t it. how your whole life goes by while you think you;re only lanning the way you’re gong to live it?”

“A close mind is a dying mind.”

Bravo, Edna! And now, inspired and emboldened – let’s all write on!

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